On one hand you've got this "election integrity" thing — not a "coalition" or a "movement" but an illness, a dementia, really: all these paranoid lunatics who say our elections aren't free and fair just because they're run on machines that give the voter no way to verify that his vote was counted correctly, without leaving a paper trail, only totals tabulated by secret software that can be easily hacked, and because millions of people are illegally prevented from voting, and millions of other votes aren't even counted, and blah blah blah.

Look, I'm sorry but I can't listen to it anymore; it puts me to sleep.

On the other hand you've got these "9/11 truth" conspiracy theorists who say "the twin towers didn't collapse, they disintegrated" and "the NIST report calls itself a whitewash with its 'low probability of occurrence' nonsense" and "the FBI has no evidence implicating Osama bin Laden in the attacks of 9/11" and all sorts of other cheap-shots against the victims and their families. How disgraceful can you get?

Then they turn around and ask hateful and irrelevant questions like "Why did the President just sit there and listen to those kids read?" and "Where was the Air Force when all this was happening?" and they just go on and on and on. It's been going on for almost six years now and I can't listen to another word of it.

How could anyone be so unpatriotic? Can you imagine? It makes me want to throw up.

You would think, if you were inclined to think at all, that these two rabid and radical nut-bar fringe groups would fit together, so to speak. In other words, you would expect to see a lot of paranoid lunatic conspiracy theorists. But you don't...

I know! it makes you sick to your stomach, doesn't it? But hang on! -- just for the sake of discussion, have a look at this picture.

Look closely. The people who designed these buttons are paranoid lunatics, but they're not conspiracy theorists. You can see that, can't you?

It's not hard to see that, in fact it's hard not to see it, because we've come to expect it. But my question today is a more interesting one:

Why?

Why are there no paranoid lunatic conspiracy theorists? In other words, why don't we see "Election Integrity" and "9/11 Truth" in the same place?

I think I know the answer.

~~~

Say what you like about the paranoid lunatics; they're not stupid. At least some of them aren't. They know their paranoid lunacy is not reality so they shy away from anything that might "tarnish" what they call their "credibility". They stick to known facts rather than wild speculation, and rightly so, in my opinion.

In other words it's a known fact that electronic voting machines can be hacked; that's been proven by Ivy League scientists and everything. It's solid. There's no conspiracy theory about it. This is fundamental, and decisive; some would say divisive. In any case, it's completely different from all the ridiculous conspiracy theories about the Islamo-Fascist terrorist attacks of 9/11, 7/7, and so on.

The conspiracy nuts aren't gonna like this, because it blows all their half-baked theories out of the water, but recently unreleased documents confirm it was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who scheduled more than a dozen simultaneous US Air Force wargames for the very day of 9/11, thus stripping the Eastern Seaboard of its air defenses. He did it by cellphone from a cave in Afghanistan, using a codebook found by an al-Q'aeda operative on a bus in Switzerland. The CIA has just confirmed all this based on records from a wireless server they impounded from an internet cafe in the Hindu Kush.

Or at least that's what they say. The actual details of the calls themselves are redacted for national security reasons. But it sounds reasonable to me. I couldn't read the source document, even if it were unclassified -- I haven't got time, and it's probably in Urdu anyway.

More to the point, would the CIA lie about something like this? I don't think so, unless it were a part of an official disinformation campaign, and as I understand it they don't do those anymore, because disinformation campaigns are now categorized as unofficial.

So that's it! And I'm glad it's settled, because that was the only remaining question; by now I think it's pretty well accepted -- even among the most rabid wackos on the frothing fringe of the increasingly gullible conspiracy community -- that Osama bin Laden personally appointed Philip Zelikow to head the independent investigation after Henry Kissinger recused himself in order to pursue less lucrative but more patriotic service opportunities. So that pretty much settles it, unless I've missed something.

Of course it doesn't really matter whether I've missed anything or not, because the conspiracy theorists will surely come up with something else; they always do. Can you believe it? Next they'll be claiming important events have been reported before they even happened.

But it's all hogwash, demented hogwash from demented conspiratorial minds, and even the paranoid lunatics want nothing to do with them. I wouldn't either.

To their credit, the conspiracy theorists are smart enough to avoid being associated with the paranoid lunatics, and this, too, is perfectly understandable, I think.

If you were a conspiracy theorist trying to drum up popular support for a laundry-list of ridiculous, treasonous demands -- a hard-left pro-terrorist manifesto, as it were -- would you include any word or phrase that fairly screamed out "PARANOID LUNATICS HERE"?

I wouldn't either, and it's a good thing too, because if all the paranoid lunatics and all the conspiracy theorists ever got out in the streets together -- on September 11, 2007, for example -- it just might encourage them to stay a while.

And that would be very bad, both for America and for me personally.

It would be bad for America for many reasons but primarily because it would show the American people how widespread mental illness is in this country, and how common delusional thinking has become. It might also give them dangerous ideas about the power of the government and the consent of the governed and possible relations between the two.

It would also be bad for me personally, because I'm a news-hound. I read several short news articles per week, and I'm afraid if there were a big, long general strike by a coalition of paranoid lunatics and conspiracy theorists, the media would start covering them. And if I ever read about paper ballots and false flag terror in the mainstream media, I know I'm gonna throw up and go to sleep.

Normally, I don't like writing about myself and my own personal reactions to things, but in this case it's "fitting and proper", as Abe Lincoln would say ... because what's bad for me personally ... is bad for America!

This is Winter Patriot reporting, from ...What? My mic is on? Damn!! [click]

Arabesque
"all sorts of other cheap-shots against the victims and their families. How disgraceful can you get?"

It seems to me that you ought to do more research before claiming to know what the family members think. The ultimate insult to the 9/11 family members is ignorance about the facts and their views.

Fact: 70% of the questions by the family members were never answered by the 9/11 commission, and this same commission was called “derelict in its duties" by the 9/11 family steering committee. [See Film/Documentary: 9/11: Press for Truth—it’s freely available on Google video, and was made with the direct support of 9/11 family members.]

Why would they say that, and why were their questions not answered?

Fact: probably more than 50% of the family members believe that 9/11 was an inside job.

"Alex Jones: With your 7,000 members, I'm sure you've talked to most if not all of them. What percentage would you say believe 9/11 is an inside job to some extent?

Bill Doyle: Maybe half... Probably 50/50."

Now why would these family members think that? Are they “insert insult here” too? Why did it take so long to get an investigation in the first place? Perhaps the worst attack in US history wasn’t important enough for an immediate investigation or even testimony under oath from high officials?

It is my suspicion that the 9/11 family members have researched 9/11 far more than you have, and if you do not wish to insult them with inaccurate and ultimately misinformed commentary, you would do well to familiarize yourself with the facts of 9/11.

Like a gunship on a strafing run, Richard.
Like a gunship on a strafing run, Richard. It's things like this that keep reminding me what the politicians are actually up against. They're probably the way there are in large part because they think "What difference does it make, really? All I gotta do is not step on my dick in public (Hillary should be good at that.) and nothing else I say or do actually matters to these people." Was it Alexander Hamilton who went into a tantrum screeching "The people! The people! The people is a giant ass!" or words to that effect? Why do you suppose a guy would say a thing like that?

Just another conspiracy nut.
I guess next time WP needs to speak very slowly so it doesn't go so far over their heads next time. Read it twice folks if you don't understand it the first time. Bravo very insightful.

throw up and go to sleep
thank you...winter patriot...for confirmation of what is the truth !! that every deciasion made and every policy held by the governing body of the united states....is for the well-being of the richest arab states,emirates(dubai)saudi arabia.. yours truly,one who has been throwing up and going to sleep in this country(for a long time)the springpatriot

cut them some slack
Jimmy, Rich: I agree it does seem to have been a bit too tall for some people. Personally I thought the sarcasm was obvious -- or even excessive! But then again the net is a big place and you never know where people are coming from. So for the people who didn't understand that it was satire, I say let's cut them some slack. Who knows? They probably live in countries where humor is forbidden.

let's not go too far overboard ...
re: #10, I appreciate the kind words but let's not get carried away.

The piece was satire. It confirms nothing.

It makes fun of the mainstream media, especially in regard to its treatment of 9/11 truth. To a lesser extent it makes fun of the election reform and 9/11 truth movements. But it does nothing to point out which people or nations are the actual beneficiaries of "every policy held by the governing body of the United States" and in particular it doesn't even mention Dubai, UAE or KSA. So please don't put any of your words into its mouth.

Seeing as how this piece has engendered such a mixed response, I feel slightly motivated to explain what it was intended to be about.

IT'S A LAMENT and A CALL TO ACTION!

It's a sad sad song about how the 9/11 Truth and Election Integrity communities are portrayed in the media, but it's also a song about how the 9/11 Truth and Election Integrity communities are seemingly trying to avoid each other, rather than coming to grips with what to me is quite obvious:

The Hijacking of America has hinged on two long-term and more or less simultaneous attacks: one on the electoral system itself, and one on your adrenal glands.

To recover from this -- if it's possible to do so at all -- we're going to have to understand this central point.

Otherwise we could conceivably do the general strike thing, get impeachment and treason trials rolling, chop off their heads and watch 'em roll into the basket so to speak (h/t Elvis) ... and then have an "election" to replace the bums and get another group of exactly the same sort of bums -- and this would be inevitable because we would have failed to fix our electoral problem.

Or else we could fix the electoral system and use it to select the next group of managers for the GWOT and the Department of Homeland Surveillance and so on, without ever asking any of the vital questions such as "is the GWOT legit?" In other words, even if we can make sure everybody gets a chance to vote, and even if we can make sure that the votes will be counted correctly, it will do us no good unless we all have at least a basic understanding of what's going on in the world.

And it's A HEARTBROKEN PLEA for the Election Integrity groups (hundreds of them) and the 9/11 Truth groups (ditto) to get over their fear of being slimed by the media -- which is gonna happen anyhow, same as it is now! -- and START WORKING TOGETHER rather than constantly worrying about how associating with one another is going to "tarnish" their "credibility"!!

That's what it's about. Not a smear against the families. Not Saudi Arabia either.

Read it again if you don't believe me. Ask questions here if you got 'em. And always remember: What's bad for me personally ... is bad for America!

But you know how the secret police work, W.P.
They keep every big fish in every little pool threatened by all the big fish in all the other little pools. All of 'em are afraid of being small fish in a big pool. And so they keep the pools separate. Colonial powers call it "divide and conquer." I just call it egoism, because that's what the tactic hinges upon. But it doesn't matter what we call it because the fact is that it works. And every fish in every pool should know it: "If you won't join with the other fish in the other pools, you're doing Karl Rove's work for him. YOU are what makes it possible for Karl Rove to quit his job and go home. YOU are what makes it possible for Karl Rove to sleep at night. YOU and your ego will be the death of your country.

... but seriously ...
I'm speaking from experience here when I say the paranoid lunatics don't want any part of the conspiracy theorists. I'm a paranoid lunatic conspiracy theorist myself (i.e. Election Integrity AND 9/11 Truth), and over the past few years I have tried very hard to bring some conspiracy theory to the paranoid lunatic community ... in fact there was a time when I was highly valued (a big fish in a small pool) for precisely that -- bringing conspiracy theory to the paranoid lunatic community. Or more accurately, talking about world events including false flag terror to people who were mostly concerned about American politics and electoral issues.

But that all changed last summer, when I found myself being shown the door by the paranoid lunatics, even though I was (and still am) a paranoid lunatic myself, because -- reading between the lines here but it's not hard to do -- they no longer feel comfortable having conspiracy theorists around.

I don't know whether I agree with Jimmy that it's all ego-driven and I don't know how much is seeded by secret police. Seems to me it would happen even without any secret policing, but of course that doesn't mean they don't do it.

It's been fun but I gotta run.

Thanks again to all the people who went ballistic thinking I had dissed the families of the victims. You guys are a great audience!

another conspiracy theorist
What Winter Patriot is trying to get us to understand is the same folks that brought us 6 glorious years of George Bush, also brought us 9-11. Unless we fix both problems or we fix neither.

Intelligent comments for clueless readers...
Satire and irony are meat and drink to we Africans, WP. We've lived on colonialism, USAID, IMF, WTO, WEF, G8 and every other acronym and -ism you can think of for longer than we dare remember. We consume self-generated doublespeak with our breakfast cereal and it repeats on us all day. So yeah, we read your article as written and continue, though all signs indicate their work will come to naught, to appreciate true U.S. patriots striving to prevent a global meltdown (mind you, that's coming anyway, isn't it?). It's also good to see the author of a piece participating in discussion of it as, generally, commenters on so-called 'progressive' sites appear to suffer ADD and fly off at tangents leading them to points of view completely at odds with the piece written. It'd be good to see more authors steer generally feather-headed readers along the lines of their clearly demarcated thoughts and -- in your case, call to action. Mind you, it was probably the call to action that threw everybody; as in "WTF's that?" Article appreciated, as is AFP.

wp re/re#10
didnt you say khalid sheik mohammed called for the drills that emptied our eastern defenses ??it is known that the hijackers were saudi(and definately not from iraq)if you were lying about that khalidsheik thing....shame on you....but if you were not lying,i am here to tell you,that what was said in #10....is the truth,since the time of bush 41,the well being of saudi arabia has ALWAYS been a priority.check it out for yourself,not to mention that saudi arabia has the most to gain from securing(genociding)iraq and eventually quelling,iran.

winter patriot or karl rove ?
now you are retracting your statement about khalid sheik mohammed,either you are a liar who is also not funny or you are really karl rove, accidently letting the cat out of the bag.......

retracting?
I can't tell whether you're joking or not so let's be clear: I am retracting nothing. I am saying the piece is satire: fiction! Almost every sentence is a deliberate exaggeration, or an outright lie.

KSM could not have scheduled the wargames. It would take an insider to do that.

OBL could not have appointed Philip Zelikow to the Whitewash commission. It would take an insider to do that too.

I was kidding! I was trying to make the point that the events of 9/11 and the ensuing coverup could not have been done by any number of primitive cave-dwellers acting alone.

If in your opinion that makes me a liar who is also not funny, then so be it. I would prefer to think you were trying a joke. Whatever.

Did they order pizza along wth the wargames?
Winter Patriot wrote: "...recently unreleased documents confirm it was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who scheduled more than a dozen simultaneous US Air Force wargames for the very day of 9/11, thus stripping the Eastern Seaboard of its air defenses. He did it by cellphone from a cave in Afghanistan, using a codebook found by an al-Q'aeda operative on a bus in Switzerland. The CIA has just confirmed all this based on records from a wireless server they impounded from an internet cafe in the Hindu Kush...